Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Obama's Pals Getting Fat at the Trough

The results of union pressure are clear. In most states, cops and other safety officers can typically retire at 50 with a pension of about half their final working salary; in California, they often receive 90 percent of their pay if they retire at the same age. The state’s munificent disability system lets public-safety workers retire with rich pay for a range of ailments that have nothing to do with their jobs, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. _CityJournal

Public sector unions such as the SEIU are getting ever fatter off the taxes of the suffering private sector, under Obama. California is the state getting most of the publicity for its public sector union atrocities, but it will not be the last to be crushed by them.

The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.

How public employees became members of the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in slower motion.

...Consider the California Teachers Association. Much of the CTA’s clout derives from the fact that, like all government unions, it can help elect the very politicians who negotiate and approve its members’ salaries and benefits....with union dues somewhere north of $1,000 per member and 340,000 members, the CTA can afford to be a player not just in local elections but in Sacramento, too (and in Washington, for that matter, where it’s the National Education Association’s most powerful affiliate).

...It will take an enormous effort to roll back decades of political and economic gains by government unions. But the status quo is unsustainable. And at long last, Californians are beginning to understand the connection between that status quo and the corruption at the heart of their politics. _CityJournal

Read the whole thing. The problem is spreading like a virus, sickening and starving every jurisdiction it touches. Essentially, it is legalised organised crime, by government workers, against the taxpayer who pays their generous benefits and pension packages. It is a parasitic relationship that cannot last forever.

Update: Here is a short video clip of a SEIU rally in Illinois -- urging higher taxes for ordinary citizens in order to pay for ever-higher wages and benefits for the fatter pigs at the public trough.